Tobacco Companies Think Their Trademarks Are More Important Than Your Health

from the who-needs-lungs-anyway? dept

Back in January of this year, Techdirt reported on tobacco companies suing a local Australian importer of their products for covering up part of their logos with a mandatory health warning. At the time, a spokeswoman for the company involved, British American Tobacco, said:

As the matter is currently before the Court, BAT is unable to comment other than to say that this is a further demonstration that we will take all necessary steps to protect our valuable intellectual property.

EU Health Commissioner John Dalli will face legal action if he tries to reproduce Australia's plain-packaging proposals for cigarettes in Europe, a tobacco industry representative warned this week.

The approach is the same as in Australia:

One likely focus of attack is intellectual property rights, since plain packaging has a smothering effect on companies' logos and trademarks.

I'd like to think that the word "smothering" was taken verbatim from some tobacco company representative, because it sums up nicely the industry's attitude: that any breathing difficulties or respiratory diseases that you may develop as the result of smoking pale into insignificance compared with the outrageous "smothering" of their logos and trademarks.

That's a particularly callous attitude, because those logos and trademarks are only valuable to the degree they have been attached to products that have caused death and disease: the "best" brands are those with a track record of selling – and hence killing – more people than rival products. In effect, the tobacco companies are complaining that all their hard work getting people addicted and smoking themselves to death will be wasted if the plain-packaging proposals for cigarettes are implemented.

The cynical posturing of tobacco firms as the victims in these continuing attempts to undo and avoid the social harm they cause underlines once more how easily intellectual monopolies can be twisted for purposes far from any original justification they may once have had. Patents can kill: so, it seems will trademarks, if tobacco companies get their way.

Every time...

I see something like this, it makes me want to watch the movie "Thank You for Smoking" again. They can say these things, but it's up to elected representatives to resist the urge (lobbying $$$) to capitulate to them. Canada has had mandatory health warnings for years now - cigarettes still sell. (They are, admittedly, a lot uglier now, tho...)

Would you take the same cynical attitude towards H&K or any other firearms maker? Tobacco companies have been nerfed in every possible way just because the product is unhealthy.
I don't think this is fair to them.

Our least defended right is the right to make bad decisions. If people want to smoke, let them.
The last thing any smoker wants to hear is more health warnings, we know, we get it, we smoke anyways. People need to just step off it already.

And yet if I'm not too much mistaken, we have yet to see a single warning label on any alcoholic beverage listing all the potential negative effects they can have. So one industry is rightfully pressured, but another is not that should be? Interesting.

There are few people, if any, who do not recognize that smoking is bad for you. This has been recognized for many decades. Politicians need to find better things to do than to tell cigarette makers to put warnings on their packaging. People are intelligent enough to recognize the risks and make their own decision on whether or not to smoke without all of the time and money wasted by government in fighting with tobacco companies over ridiculous label requirements.

Who is this author and why is he here?

This is the sort of misleading and alarmist crap I'm generally spared reading Techdirt with regularity. Not to say anything about the altruism of tobacco companies, but they aren't putting their trademarks above public health - they're putting them above a mandatory warning label stuck on top of their logo. The two are not the same by any stretch of the imagination.

Hey, I'm against putting a giant skull and crossbones with pictures of dead babies all over foods with trans fat in them. Am I going to Hell, Glyn?

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What about our freedoms?

I have a huge problem here. I don't smoke and have seen family members die from lung cancer from smoking their whole life. But tobacco companies should have a right to display their logos on their product since it is a legal product to sell. Today people know the dangers of smoking and continue to smoke anyway. So where is it the governments place to tell a company selling a legal product that they can't put their brand on it? Are we thinking of the children here?

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I agree completely. It is odd that most posts and comments here are in some way related to our freedoms yet this post on cigarettes has everyone screaming for regulation. Either you want freedom or you don't, degrees of freedom suck.

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Except we don't allow people to make bad decisions which actually hurt other people directly. There are health implications beyond your own personal health, which is a rather convenient fact to forget, it appears.

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The difference is if used properly a firearm isn't dangerous to your health but tobacco is. Certainly firearms can be used in dangerous and deadly ways but going to the range everyday and firing off a box of bullets is not going to harm you, well maybe your eardrums.

I'm a smoker and I do feel I should have the right to kill myself very slowly if I want but I also agree that their should be restrictions on advertising tobacco. With a big enough budget you can sell anything to anybody. Last thing we need is a 200 million dollar campaign to get the next generation hooked early. I think they go a little far with the forced sometimes with the required pack warnings I mean really who at this point doesn't know that smoking is harmful?

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I have seen the pregnant women one, "Drink responsibly", and "Don't drink and drive" in tiny text at the bottom of the label. I don't even know if they're legally required.

I'm with a lot of posters here. We all know that smoking is bad for you. We don't need bigger warnings on the labels. I'm also of the mind that we ether need to make smoking illegal, or legal; none of this in between bullshit.

Once the government got involved in your health care it got involved in your life and freedoms.
This is what progressives are all about. telling you how to live your life and using the force of government to make you live it the way they want you to.
True freedom, true liberty, only happens when the government fears you, currently we fear our own government.
Wake up restore liberty!

Re: What about our freedoms?

My grandfather died of lung cancer. Never smoked. Served in WWII, though. Dad's best friend died of lung cancer, never smoked. Total health freak. Granny smoked til she was 80 years old, died at 85 from natural causes. Dad smoked for 40 years, died from asbestosis. Worked with that stuff unprotected for 15 years before they told him it was bad, and they just gave him protective gear from then on. My fricken health specimen of a husband had prostate cancer, out of nowhere.

I was just diagnosed with breast cancer. My only risk factor: never had kids. Wonder what the risk factor was for the four other women in my family that had the same cancer but do have kids? My second cousin who also never had kids but is battling cervical cancer?

I know, all anecdotal, proves nothing except that cancer fucking happens, no matter what you do or don't do. We are at the point where the emphasis must be on better (and for god's loving sake, more humane) detection and treatment and a goddamn cure already. Just being alive is bad for you, no amount of prevention will spare you. You are made of cells and it might happen that some of them decide to become cancer. Or it might not.

All this dorking around with labels is pointless. Forcing tobacco, fast food, liquor, xray machine, construction materials and car companies to fund and find a cure would be a far more interesting fight to watch.

Seriously

Yes, that is perfect. The pretty Camel picture made me want to smoke... It is far more influential than a warning label. Here is the deal, everyone knows smoking is bad, but people still choose to do it. Lets use common sense and leave the tobacco companies alone and hold the individuals who chose to smoke responsible for their own actions. This is a waste of time, and money. If anything the government should regulate and say the harmful contents of cigarettes should be reduced or removed to help out. Not adding a bigger label.

I love how you are all justifying the gov forcing a manufacturer of a LEGAL product to change their packaging because of health concerns. Sorry, is there a Health Concern exemption for forcing tobacco products to have health warnings on their packaging?

For every single one of you that thinks this is OK, please explain and justify why only tobacco companies have to do this? why not alcohol companies? because there is no way you can say tobacco is worse than alcohol? Just as many health issues, and significantly many more social and legal issues. I don't see too many people being charged with DUIs for smoking. I see and hear of just as many liver and health issues related to drinking. Drinking advertising is aimed at children just as much if not more than tobacco

Just because it is a product that is pretty much reviled, doesn't mean we can just say, oh this product is bad for you so we'll just mess with the packaging.

Either products fall under the same guidelines or its just the Gov trying to force themselves on us in another way. Whats to stop them from saying, hey we dont like this or that or the other thing so we'll just say that we're going to force you to market your product with a nasty picture on it because we feel like it.

I would be amazingly surprised if Mike had the same conclusions at the end of this article if he had written it.

Freedom\Trademark\IP must only be defensible to Glen if its a product he approves of, otherwise, sure use any excuse you want to mess with the trademark or packaging, I don't mind it when it happens to that company, they make tobacco products.

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Addendum: my cancer never showed up on a mammogram, btw. Found it myself, only because I complained did they find it on an ultrasound scan and resulting needle biopsy...stuff of nightmares, that was. My lumpectomy is Monday, they want me to do radiation treatments...which can also cause cancer. The complacency around these cut/burn/poison methods is what horrifies me most sometimes. No better than the Middle Ages, really, just more elegant and expensive.

All the time, money, hours, research, testing...this is still all we have. Someone needs to up their game.

Maybe a solution

Allow them to put their logos on with just one change.

Whenever someone dies from emphysema or the type of lung cancer that is almost always caused by smoking, they keep a tally. Below the logo in large digits is the number of dead smokers who smoked that particular brand. The count gets updated semiannually. Maybe add a 3D bar code that sends you to a website that maintains the current counts for each brand.

Gets the message across with minimal changes and has the added benefit of always driving people away from the best selling (i.e. highest death count) brands which screws all the tobacco companies (though not nearly as hard as they should be)

heh, i'm actually quitting this week, hopefully. but i cans ay with absolute certainty that the warning labels on smokes have never had any impact on wheher or not i continued....and the sin taxes just make sure that my western currency leaves the US economy and heads to west fuckistan for the last few years.

Government out of personal choice, end the f***ing war on American citizens.

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The labels don't help at all anyways. Smokers are well aware of what smoking does, and believe me, if it stresses them - they just go and smoke some more to calm down. If anything, these labels provoke the OPPOSITE response intended. Now THAT is what we call "IRONY"

Tobacco Companies Scum

Canada isn't allowed to display cigarettes in stores, and they also have those pictures of all the problems smoking causes. Hasn't slowed down business one bit. If people want to smoke, they'll find a way to smoke. Was the same thing for liquor in prohibition and same in the failed Drug War.

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I am sorry to hear about your cancer, I pray you get healed up soon.

My wife has gone through thyroid cancer this year. Fortunately it appears to be taken care of. It quite likely was caused by the radioactive iodine they gave her 10 years ago to deaden her overactive thyroid. So yea, I agree you, it seems for all the advancements in medicine we have had we still seem to be in the middle ages for a lot of things.

Smoking... Tobacco and Adverts

If this is such an issue for the health of the nation, it should be illegal; but alas, we again enter the Duplicity Zone… Welcome to the DZ where what’s right is often ignored in favor of profit. The country and the world are dying from tobacco smoke, but there are trillions of dollars in revenue and profit for investors, so we’ll let those with the predisposition smoke, and allow others to profit from it. This is not the only room in the DZ... There is Mega Pharma, Chemical Corporations, Power Companies, Farmers, Genetic Engineers, etc. So, where is the cadre’ of celebrities with this ax to grind?

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If smokers could smoke without bothering/inflicting harm on others, I would not have a problem. But we know that's not the case. Second-hand smoke, littered butts, higher healthcare costs impact us all. The tobacco companies don't give a s**t about any of that.

Message from the future! In 20 years from now Glyn Moody will decide that he dislikes fat people as much as he dislikes smokers and will post the following news article:

Back in January of this year, Techdirt reported on fast food companies suing a local Australian importer of their products for covering up part of their logos with a mandatory health warning. At the time, a spokeswoman for the company involved, McDonald's, said:

As the matter is currently before the Court, BAT is unable to comment other than to say that this is a further demonstration that we will take all necessary steps to protect our valuable intellectual property.

Given that stance, it will come as no surprise to learn that fast food companies are now threatening to take on the European Commission as well:

EU Health Commissioner John Dalli Jr. will face legal action if he tries to reproduce Australia's plain-packaging proposals for hamburgers in Europe, a fast food industry representative warned this week.

The approach is the same as in Australia:

One likely focus of attack is intellectual property rights, since plain packaging has a smothering effect on companies' logos and trademarks.

I'd like to think that the word "smothering" was taken verbatim from some fast food company representative, because it sums up nicely the industry's attitude: that any obecity or heart diseases that you may develop as the result of eating fast food pale into insignificance compared with the outrageous "smothering" of their logos and trademarks.

That's a particularly callous attitude, because those logos and trademarks are only valuable to the degree they have been attached to products that have caused man boobs and diariah: the "best" brands are those with a track record of selling – and hence killing – more people than rival products. In effect, the fast food companies are complaining that all their hard work getting people addicted and eating themselves to death will be wasted if the plain-packaging proposals for hamburgers are implemented.

The cynical posturing of fast food firms as the victims in these continuing attempts to undo and avoid the social harm they cause underlines once more how easily intellectual monopolies can be twisted for purposes far from any original justification they may once have had. Patents can kill: so, it seems will trademarks, if fast food companies get their way.

Victims...by choice????

I am a smoker and have been since I was around 7 years old. I knew even at that age that smoking was harmful and that it would most likely lead to my early demise, still I chose to smoke anyway (i have even quit several times for over a year and decided to return to smoking. I AM NOT A VICTIM OF THE TOBACCO COMPANIES. It was my choice and my choice alone and NO ONE has the right to tell me i don't have the right to make that choice. Instead of wasting taxpayer money and time on stupid sh*t like gross labeling or plain packageing, how about some regulation like: no more chemicals added to tobacco keep it pure and natural (seriously who really wants their cigs to have the shelf life of uranium) Look back in history, we did not start having *serious* health issues concerning smoking until modern times when tobacco companies started cramming their smokes full of hundreds of chemicals and preservatives. look at high quality cigar smokers (even the ones that do fully inhale like myself) since the leaf is all natural (save for a soak in rum or liquer for flavor) it causes far less harm than a pack of marlboros. Want proof for this, look at native american life spans during the early days of America, most natives were well into their 80s and 90s (and still far more active than even 40 year olds today) even though they smoked tobacco all day long.

so in short stop calling smokers victimes, we chose to smoke. If you really do care about our health that much then make the tobacco companies revert to using all NATURAL ingrediants and NO preservatives.

Coreoveride
smoker of 25 years, with lungs of a 2 year smoker thanks to buying preservative/chemical free tobacco. cram that in your pipe and smoke it.

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I disagree. The product is only legal because unlike wrecks involving unsafe cars or airplanes, a specific manufacturer can't be blamed.

Fred Singer (the guy behind the "climate change is fake" scam) always used the fact that the massive number of tobacco-related illness and deaths are "only" statistical. You can't point to a specific cigarette to a specific case of cancer, all you can do is say that the risk of cancer is n times higher for smokers. If a single entity like Ford or Boeing had statistics like the tobacco companies do, their products would not be legal in any country.

I'm all for putting the screws to them in any way possible. They kill people for profit.

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Re: Victims...by choice????

So, if we do the math, and you were seven years old when starting to smoke, and have smoked for twenty-five years, that would make you around 32. RIght? So you have the lungs of a two year smoker, and you think that is something commendable? One thing for sure, you won't be a burden on the Social Security system in the future, so puff away.

Re: Our least defended right is the right to make bad decisions.

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Thank you, John Doe. I wish only the best of health for you and your wife...and anyone else, really! I'm in a very frightened, trapped, and angry place right now and wouldn't wish it upon anyone. I didn't mean to come across as tearing you up, so I apologize if I did.

I think we can safely say that smoking can be harmful in myriad ways. But so is radiation, and they apply that to humans all the time in the name of medical science. I start wondering what my future will be like after what I'll be exposed to and...

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Re: What about fat people?

Don't smokers already pay higher premiums for health coverage? I know they do for life insurance coverage. I imagine it might be the same, or coming soon, for the morbidly obese.

My husband was denied life insurance due to an elevated PSA (which is indicative of several things, not just prostate cancer, btw). Turns out he did have prostate cancer, but they couldn't have known that from a blood test.

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Re: Re: What about fat people?

They don't pay anything at all approaching the actual costs of the myriad of health problems that smoking causes. Just like motorcycle riders who don't wear helmets like the free ride they get for the hundreds of millions in extra medical costs they cause, smokers love soaking the taxpayers for all the extra costs of their addiction. They cost far more than just cancer treatments, there are at least a dozen smoking-related illnesses plus lost productivity (they take more sick days) they often require longer treatment or hospitalization and worse, even if their kids don't smoke, they're still more likely to need treatment for asthma as well as being more likely to require ICU treatment when they get ill with the flu (and probably other illnesses as well).

Smokers cost the public tens of billions annually, but they're perfectly okay with welfare for their benefit. They just don't like it when some out of work single mom gets some.

Not really

The "dangers" of second hand smoke are hugely exaggerated. The health nannies get away with it only because tobacco companies are one of those areas where we are allowed to be abusive because no one of significance will come to their defense.

Why it looks like their revenue last year was only $17.4B and they only made $2B. Oh, wait, that's just one tobacco company, isn't it? Those poor, poor, horribly abused little companies. Why I bet that kind of terrible treatment makes the baby Jesus cry and blow snot on his sleeve!

Of course I'm also laboring under the delusion that the tobacco companies still win 60% of the lawsuits filed against them. I suppose that because it's those "health nannies" at the Tobacco Institute who make that claim.

Oh, crap - sorry, I just realized when I turned off the caps lock I accidentally hit Ctrl+Sarcasm.

Legal

Tobacco is legal. So why don't allow them to use their logos? Of course, with all reasonable health warnings included, no doubt, but as all legal industries, they should have a place to reasonably show their trademarks. Today it is well known that tobacco kills, so allowing use of trademarks wont change that. Sure, it makes it more attractive, but again, it is legal and people know the risks... I think they should be allowed to reasonably use the Tms.

They're not talking about putting some restrictions on some poor, innocent little companies who just want to be left alone to sell their product to informed and consenting adults. We're talking about multi-billion dollar predators who when they couldn't advertise smoking to kids in the USA simply redirected their money to trying to get kids in Asia and Africa addicted as soon as they're out of the womb.